Our Mission is to listen to and reflect the human experience in a way that increases each individual's sense of community and respect for humanity. Pittsburgh Playback Theatre uses improvisational performance to engage the audience in a meaningful dialogue. What are we? Pittsburgh Playback Theatre is a unique form of theater unlike any other in the Pittsburgh region. We develop interactive performances that are custom designed to meet the needs of the audience and the host institution. Instead of performing scripted plays, we improvise directly on stage vignettes that respond to the words and expressions of audience members. The result of this unique experience is that the audience learns about themselves and the others around them, and deals with complex issues in a safe and creative atmosphere. PPT gives voices to people who can not, or do not easily speak for themselves. We believe that by empowering people to tell the stories of their lives, and by encouraging people to listen to these stories, we can help our community connect to each other and respect each other more fully. Many people have specific stories, such as surviving genocides or war, personal traumas or subjugations, that our culture should not avoid hearing or understanding. Others have universal stories, such as losing a child or livelihood that our audiences could relate their own lives to, and possibly see and understand their own struggles better. The use of theatre as a method to form these voices and tell these stories is essential to promoting the universal complexities and connectivity of human-kind. PPT uses people to tell people's stories. The facial gesture, the body language, the intuitive nuance of the actors' voice, give the stories a direct human element that help audiences connect to the content and each other. The facilitator provides structure and controls the interaction to keep the experience positive and meaningful. PPT was founded to use theatre to help Pittsburgh residents see their local and global culture with more clarity and sympathy, so that we can advance as a community. What can we do for you? We help people deal with complex or difficult content, situations, or emotions. Playback has successfully facilitated performative workshops on tragedies such as neighborhood shootings, the events of September 11th, and the Holocaust, the stress of working with terminally ill children and people with special needs, and the sometimes unapproachable topics of HIV awareness and prevention. We have also worked with the Frick Museum of Art, the Society of Contemporary Craft, University of Pittsburgh Theater Department and the Three Rivers Arts Festival to develop outreach programs that help make their programming more accessible to the public. We will meet with you and your planning team to discuss exactly what you want. We will discuss why you want playback and how often you want us to work with your group. We will then prepare our actors through research and rehearsals and come to your site. Assemble 10 to 50 people, and our facilitator will open the program with comments and solicit feedback from the audience. Then, after each audience member's contribution, our actors will use simple props and musical instruments to improvise fairy tales, human sculptures, Greek Chorus formats, dialogues or monologues that further the audience's thoughts. The dialogue and resulting improvisations are quite engaging and often humorous. People have described Playback as warm, entertaining, provocative, funny, and richly rewarding. Pittsburgh Playback Theatre is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Donations are tax deductible.